Herman Behr Mansion
82 Pierrepont Street | also 180 Henry Street | Brooklyn Heights | built 1890
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1889
Abrasives manufacturer Herman Behr, father of a tennis player and a golfer, builds a mansion on Pierrepont Street
Industrialist Herman Behr, who made abrasives, had Frank Freeman design the house at the corner of Pierrepont and Henry streets, built in 1888-89. Among his children were tennis player Karl Behr and golfer Max Behr. The family later moved upstate.
“…designed by leading Brooklyn architect Frank Freeman for industrialist Herman Behr, an abrasives manufacturer and the father of tennis player Karl Behr and golfer Max Behr.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1889
Frank Freeman's Romanesque Revival house is hailed as the city's finest
Built of Belleville brownstone with brick terra cotta facing, the house has two semicircular bays flanking its entrance, a steep tiled gabled roof and animal ornament including lizards, lions and dragons. Critics have called it the city's finest Romanesque Revival house. It was originally three stories high, not counting basement and attic.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1919
The Behr mansion gets a six-story rear extension and becomes the Palm Hotel
In 1919 the house was substantially expanded, with a six-story extension added at the rear of the property. It became the Palm Hotel. By then the Behr family had moved upstate.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1929
The Behr family loses the house in the Depression and it declines into a brothel
The Behr family's fortune was wiped out in the Great Depression, and the house passed out of their hands. In its declining years it was a brothel. A story that it housed Xaviera Hollander's brothel is an urban legend, since her book locates that one in an apartment block at 73rd Street and York Avenue.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1961
The Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn make the mansion their residence
The Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn took the mansion as a residence in 1961. The arrangement went with their running of St. Francis College.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1977
The mansion is sold and converted into rental apartments
In 1977 the building was sold and turned into rental apartments. It had been a Franciscan residence since 1961. In 2008 it sold again, for $10,980,000.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Herman Behr MansionWikipedia
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